Doctor Who: Shining Darkness by Mark Michalowski Page A

robot back there,’ he said casually as they arrived at his room. ‘I’m so sorry that we couldn’t help it. For all Li’ian’s professed caring for machine-kind, I’d have expected a bit more… well, a bit more emotion.’
    The door hissed open and the Doctor stepped in, Mother staying in the corridor, looking down at him with her fiery eyes.
    ‘You look like a bellboy waiting for a tip,’ the Doctor grinned. ‘Come in,’ he said airily, stepping back from the door; but Mother stood out in the corridor, impassively.
    ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, I’m not going to hurt you. Come on – come on in. There’s something you can help me with.’
    There was something almost endearing about the cautiousness with which the huge robot entered the room, like a cat sniffing the outstretched fingers of a stranger before letting itself be stroked.
    ‘Here,’ said the Doctor, tossing something through the air. Mother’s massive, claw-like hand snapped out almost as fast as the eye could see and caught it perfectly. She tilted her head and examined it: it was a chunky brass cube, etched on all six surfaces with a pattern of circuits and connections.
    ‘It’s the memory core from the robot we found down on Karris,’ said the Doctor casually. ‘But I don’t suppose you need me to tell you that.’
    Mother raised her head and looked at him.
    ‘Why have I got it?’ the Doctor guessed at her unspoken question. ‘Well… The robot – sorry, is “robot” all right with you? Would you prefer “machine intelligence”? “Mechanical”?’ Mother nodded her head the tiniest of amounts. ‘Ah, right – mechanical it is. The mechanical had clearly only just been killed, so I thought that there was a good chance that its non-volatile memory would still be accessible, and that, maybe, some of its personality constructs would still be there.’
    He watched Mother carefully as she turned the gleaming cube over in her hands. What was she thinking?
    ‘Now,’ he said, with an exaggerated sigh, ‘all I need is a way of accessing it, see if we can do anything with it – maybe transplant any consciousness there into another mechanical . It might give us a clue as to what these Cultists are doing. It might even allow the mechanical to live again.’ He paused. ‘What d’you think?’
    Mother examined the cube again, before suddenly sinking to her knees before the Doctor. Even in this position, her eyes were still a good six inches above the Doctor’s, and he realised quite how powerful this mute robot was.
    The vast, v-shaped body, mirroring the v-shaped head, faced him, gleaming a dull silver in the room’s lights. Suddenly, with a gentle click, a circular section in the front of her chest split down the centre and the two halves parted, followed by a wider section that slid down to reveal a complex mass of circuitry. Out of the rat’s nest of wires and components, like a metallic worm, a slim tendril extended outwards several centimetres. Fascinated, the Doctor watched as Mother lowered the memory core to the tendril and the tendril locked itself onto the terminals on one of the cube’s faces. As he watched, he noticed something else – something nestled in the complex innards of the robot. Something that looked decidedly out of place…
    A few moments later, there was a hum and a brief buzz and Mother disconnected the cube, handing it gently back to the Doctor.
    ‘And…?’ said the Doctor.
    He jumped as suddenly, hovering in the air between him and Mother, was a flickering rectangle of pink light.
    ‘Ahhh! A virtual screen!’
    The screen fizzled and crackled and then, in red:
    >MEMORY ARCHIVE PARTIALLY INTACT.
    ‘Marvellous! How intact?’
    >INSUFFICIENT FOR RECONSTRUCTION. THERMAL DEGRADATION HAS CAUSED IRREPARABLE DAMAGE.
    ‘Oh.’ The Doctor’s face fell. ‘That’s a shame. Is there nothing about the Cultists or their mission? Nothing that it overheard?’
    >NO. THE MECHANICAL DESIGNATED ZB2230/3 IS